Greetings!
Spinachcat briefly mentioned several of his characters that he had in past campaigns that were dysfunctional and crippled, messed up in many ways--but turned out to be quite effective, useful, and fun to play.
It brought to my mind a character I ran in one campaign, long ago. My character was a human Barbarian, named Hroggdan. Hroggdan possessed a great strength, and a good constitution. Sounds perfect in many ways, from a certain mechanical point of view. Hroggdan had a 13 Charisma, not too bad. Terrible Intelligence, Wisdom, and also a poor Dexterity. Hroggdan was lucky to hit the side of a barn whenever he shot his longbow, but not bright enough to fully realize that it was his own poor agility that hampered his ranged weapon abilities. Instead, Hroggdan blamed his poor archery skills on him suffering from a mystical curse placed on him by his god Wotan for accidentally failing to save a group of ravens that were burned up on a river ship owned by a group of bandits that the character party had encountered when they first began adventuring. Hroggdan also spoke in the Third Person--referring to himself as Hroggdan frequently, instead of *I*, *Me*, or *Mine*. Hroggdan believed in solving most problems with his greatsword, or sometimes his warhammer. Hroggdan believed that his warhammer was blessed by Wotan, and the warhammer possessed feelings of jealousy when Hroggdan used his greatsword too often in battle. Hroggdan was always eager to leap into battle, and was also suspicious of most strangers. Hroggdan celebrated violence, women, ale, and food--especially finely cooked meats from various animals. In dungeons, Hroggdan often leaped into Gelatinous Cubes, ferocious groups of giant ants, or obvious traps. Hroggdan seldom made any kind of dexterity-based saving throw, so he often tended to throw himself recklessly into crazy dangers, again believing that such circumstances were a sort of mystical challenge for him to face up to, using physical strength and fearless courage and will to triumph. Hroggdan leapt upon Otyughs, and when dire wolves would bite him, Hroggdan would bite them back in return. Hroggdan often favoured thrusting a flaming torch inside the mouth of creatures seeking to bite and devour him. Hroggdan was always eating and drinking, and was eager to throw whatever animals or creatures the party had defeated into the campfire, to enjoy sampling a new kind of meat. Unless the others in the party expressly told him not to, Hroggdan would usually blow on this huge Viking warhorn that he carried with him whenever they entered battle, believing that by sounding the great warhorn, Wotan would look upon him and bless him in the coming struggle.
Hroggdan was blast to play, and as he advanced in experience and levels, he became awesome, and quite formidable. Despite Hroggdan's frequent physical clumsiness, and mishaps while jumping, running, or trying to climb various surfaces, a propensity to set off traps, and be unable to make any such related saving throws to avoid them, or checks to otherwise detect them, his often hair-trigger eagerness for violence, and his abrasive, rough social temperament, the other party members enjoyed having Hroggdan as a member of the group. Hroggdan was often a great source for comedy in physical challenges and dungeons alike, as well as misinterpreted or violently paranoid social interactions. Somehow, Hroggdan made meaningful contributions to the mission and the group's survival, and was awesome fun to play!
When I first rolled up Hroggdan, I thought for sure he was going to be a hopeless character; mentally, socially, and physically challenged, was going to be pathetic and stupid, and probably meet a swift and terrible death. I initially didn't have a lot of hopes for the character at all. I thought, well, yay. He has lots of hit points, and can hit with a greatsword like a fucking freight train--but that's about it. I think Hroggdan had an 8 Intelligence, a 6 or 8 Wisdom, and an 8 Dexterity. The guy spoke in single, declarative sentences, had a woeful intellect, and the mindset resembling an over-protective, territorial, and mean-spirited, suspicious wolf.:D
Have you had dysfunctional, crippled, or messed up characters that were surprisingly fun and entertaining, but also turned out to be much more effective than you had anticipated?
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
My characters were usually quite playable even if not most optimised.
In our D&D 3,5 / Pathfinder though we have this player who is quite weird looking, and not very social playing CN arctic halfling from canibalistic tribe who wanders the world as his devotion towards god of travel - Shandakul.
He is sorcerer of ice dragon bloodline, extremely efficient ice spell blaster, although generally one-bite as a target.
But he is also truly CN in a way that can be nasty, but is overall consistent and fun - he is extremely prejudiced towards elf, so elven archer girl (NG with very teenage attitude) is constantly considered by him to be a worshipper of Dark Gods, he is terrible gossiper (my weretiger barbarian once went to trial because he gossiped about my lycanthropic rampages to wrong people), he collects teeth and claws of fallen enemies and will eat their meat if not checked. And also despite having no Charisma as a player he s able to show creepy high Charisma of his sorcerer in a way that make his high Bluff and Persuasion rolls to be quite believable.
Now of course the same player sort of missed another high Charisma character with Summoner/Bard in my campaign, seems that Lawful Neutral is not for him.
Dysfunctional was pretty much the defining element of the Rifts campaign party I GMed. It was fun for a bit. But then devolved after a point.
Dysfunctional was like 75% of the Gamma World campaign party I GMed. Geat fun till one of the players turned out to be a scam artist. (Literally. He is an artist that scams customers.)
In my own RPG oddly the groups were alot less if that while at the same time being very independent all. They worked together and split up quite a bit yet never at cross eachother.
I had great fun playing a "religious nut" of sorts. He turned a blind eye to his obviously corrupt church leaders, but was also extremely heroic and eventually threw his life away for refusing to run away when fighting a powerful enemy that was terrorizing the peasants.
Quote from: Omega;1128927Dysfunctional was pretty much the defining element of the Rifts campaign party I GMed. It was fun for a bit. But then devolved after a point.
Dysfunctional was like 75% of the Gamma World campaign party I GMed. Geat fun till one of the players turned out to be a scam artist. (Literally. He is an artist that scams customers.)
In my own RPG oddly the groups were alot less if that while at the same time being very independent all. They worked together and split up quite a bit yet never at cross eachother.
Greetings!
Indeed, "Dysfunctional" characters can make a group interesting, and fun! I think it is always a blast to watch how different players overcome their character's deficiencies, or otherwise go with the flow and make their characters interesting. Some players have the idea if they don't have uber stats then their character is going to be lame and unplayable!:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Eric Diaz;1128930I had great fun playing a "religious nut" of sorts. He turned a blind eye to his obviously corrupt church leaders, but was also extremely heroic and eventually threw his life away for refusing to run away when fighting a powerful enemy that was terrorizing the peasants.
Greetings!
*Laughing* Players often *love* religious nuts! They can bring a lot of drama and interesting facets of tension to a group, for sure!:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Back when TBP had jokes and things some guy shared the story of Mahatma Gandhi's evil twin, Snake Gandhi.
Quote from: Dan Vincze;1128957Back when TBP had jokes and things some guy shared the story of Mahatma Gandhi's evil twin, Snake Gandhi.
Greetings!
Oh, yeah! An evil twin of Mahatma Gandhi? *laughing* That's so awesome! I can just imagine my players dealing with Snake Gandhi! The expressions on their faces, the "WTF?" looks. Just beautiful.:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
My now 9+ year long Spelljammer campaign now converted over to 5e is pretty much dysfunction junction. The only time they arent getting in trouble is when they ARE in trouble. Oft by their own hands. And yet still work together, sometimes under duress, and even manage to save a few people along the way, for fun and profit.
I dont know about dysfunctional characters but I was in a game with a one armed Cleric NPC in our party. If I remember correctly the DM just had a shield tied to his stump so it did not adversely effect his performance in game. When we were high enough level we did a quest for his church to pay off the cost of regenerating his arm so it all worked out well in the end.
I've seen tons of dysfunctional characters that turned out to be awesome. In at least three or four cases I recall, players had characters that they felt were totally gimped, and were actively putting those characters in excessive danger expecting them to die, only to have the character keep right on surviving until it became a great character. And characters with serious flaws are usually way better Roleplaying potential than the ones that are ideal.